Creative Books

But
these were only narrow wedges of civilization thrust into the Indian
country, the field of operations of the fur-traders. Successors to
the French traders who had followed the rivers and lakes of Canada
far towards the interior, the Hudson's Bay Company, and the
Northwest Company under British charters had carried their
operations from the Great Lakes to the Pacific long before Americans
entered the west. As early as 1793, Alexander Mackenzie reached the
Pacific from the Great Lakes by way of Canada. [Footnote: Mackenzie,
Travels.] The year before, an English ship under Vancouver explored
the northwestern coast in the hope of finding a passage by sea to
the north and east. He missed the mouth of the Columbia, which in
the following month was entered by an American, Captain Gray, who
ascended the river twenty miles. The expedition of Lewis and Clark,
1804-1806, made the first crossing of the continent from territory
of the United States, and strengthened the claims of that country to
the region of the Columbia.


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